Explain 4

Today Erin got to choose the explain topic.

She chose: the worm band-aid

Everyone knows that one part of the worm that doesn't look like the rest of the worm. It's like, worms are very uniform in appearance, except for that one part that looks like someone put a band-aid around the worm.

What is that part? What is it's function?

I think it's like proto-shoulders. Or maybe that's where the worms vital organs are so it has some extra protection there and things attach to it. Like our ribcage maybe.

I don't think worms are as bendy at that part. So maybe it's like a fulcrum. It's where their worm muscles attach.

Maybe it's like a belly button. Some remnant from a previous worm stage. What are worm babies?

This only raises more questions!!

Explains 3

A Piston.

This one is really easy. Pistons are simple.  A piston is like a tube. And then, um,

Ok.  A piston is like a barrel with one closed end and then the other end is adjustable...kinda.

Imagine a barrel. And on end, the lid has an arm attached and that arm can push the end further into the barrel and compress the space inside.

So, wait, now that I'm thinking about it, I think that arm, the thing doing the compressing within the tube is the piston. Not the whole system. I don't know what that's called. A cylinder? Like in an engine, maybe.

Anyway, a piston is a mechanical... instrument that shoots forward to...poke stuff.

Yeah. Not gonna look it up. Just gonna put it out there. I'm open to suggestions.

Running Update

I've probably already said this but I've been thinking about it a lot so I'll say it again: my goal is to WIN the charlottesville 10 miler.

Training is going really well. A year ago I couldn't run and now I am one short run away from my highest mileage week ever.

Don't Let The Name Fool You

The new Spiderman movie is really good.

“That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero."

PIxel Tactics

Over Thanksgiving Break I was 5-1 with Erin in Pixel Tactics.

This break my record is 1-3.

I'm slipping.

da pigans page

this is an offshoot of the word of the bird inspired by one of my favorite students. she writes fanmail to the word of the bird as the "pigans" so they were given their own page.

Andy Explains

The second installment of my series where I explain something to the best of my ability.

Today: touchscreens.

The first touchscreens probably came out in like the 80s maybe. I know phones started getting touchscreens in like 2008-2010. That was like a transition time from number pad typing to full keyboard. I think.

Anyway, the way a touchscreen might work as that there are a whole bunch of pressure sensitive um, thingies on a surface and they correspond to the pixels on the screen. Somehow conductivity is also involved because you can't just manipulate the screen with anything. It has to be like a tongue or hotdog or stylus or finger.

That's pretty much it. Maybe there's a current going through the screen. Or maybe like, you know how when you used to press down really hard on an old school calculator screen it would flash all those crazy colors. Yeah, maybe that is involved as well.

Just as a rule i'm never going to look up any of these topics even after writing on them.

The Nightwalker

This is the third night in about two weeks that I've heard footsteps outside my window. I think it's a bear probably walking by Messy Art. Bears have been known to go by there. But because of the size, the steps sound like they could be human.

It sounds like someone puttering about on the leaves. They step slowly but without any purpose. It creeps me out and comforts me at the same time.

Pink Ink

Trying to Explain Things I Don't Understand.

Topic: concrete

Concrete is some special mixture of rocks and minerals. Or maybe it's just pulverized rocks?

You can buy a bag of dry concrete dust and I think if you just add water it becomes a liquid then a solid.

Concrete Trucks have mixers which keep the concrete from solidifying.

I believe concrete is lightweight. Relatively. Like as opposed to a rock or a brick maybe. It's still quite heavy.

When you build with concrete you add rebar? to it.  Which as far as i can tell is some metal poles that give it more structural integrity. This is important.

One time I saw a video where these people made a dome for a big building in like 2 seconds because they slathered wet concrete on a balloon and inflated it and then the concrete hardened and they popped the balloon and it was a dome. And the guy was like pretty smug about it.

I also saw the same concept applied to cheap housing. Like a tiny house.

I don't know when concrete was invented. Probably in like the 20th century maybe? John Concrete.

I think sidewalks are made of concrete, generally. But roads aren't. And i'm told as a runner that roads are "softer" than sidewalk.

Yeah, concrete is all around. Visible and unvisible. And that's most of what I know about it.

Tune in next time when I try to explain something else to illustrate just how little I know.

winter parking lot

3 years ago- leaving the school, walking out into the parking lot. Nervous but trying to withhold judgment on how things were going.

2 years ago- in the same parking lot. Made up my mind to leave.

1 year ago- at the different job. thinking about getting back to camp.

This year- happy. Back in the school parking lot. Thinking the light looks really cool and that there's no way my cellphone camera can capture it.

these kids is great

Shoveled Yesterday

Shoveled the front porch and the parking lot/driveway. My back is really sore today because I knowingly shoveled with horrible form. Too excited, I guess.

My right calf also cramped up at the end of the run today. Probably a combination of dehydration, running/sliding in mud and snow, shoveling yesterday, rewearing long retired shoes. It's still tight so I should drink water right now.

This evening marks the end of day 5 of my weekend. Lots of snow and hundreds of square miles of back roads means the county is quick to close schools. Today, when I would've been at work, I felt really stagnant and antsy. This is a great time to get a lot of work done on ongoing projects but being off my schedule seems to make it hard to get momentum. I don't know. Good problems to have, ultimately.

For now I'm working on mailing things to people. I've been doing a lot of painting and drawing and I have about 4 or 5 bundles almost ready to go. I should get back to work on that now.

2 hour delay for schools tomorrow. Still a chance to close.

An exciting time

I was thinking as I was driving back to Charlottesville today that this is a really interesting time to be alive. Personally. And generally. But within my own little bubble there are so many questions with outcomes that are absolutely uncertain. And however they end up being answered will inform how I approach future situations and future questions.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming. Or frustrating. But for right now it's just very interesting to not know and have no way of knowing.

Word of the Bird #12

Snowy Sunday Word of the Bird #11

family looking good

N.R.G.

I'm not going to want to get up tomorrow. I can feel it. I'll be too tired. Oh well.

I worked on being more gentle and patient today at after school. I think it helped. I don't know. I feel better at the end of the day if I didn't come down hard and the group was still successful.

I like to think I have good relationships with all the kids. When I first worked at after school my goal was to be competent and feel like I was good at my job. That's still my natural inclination and motivation but since working at the boarding school I think relationships are equally if not slightly more important. I want to be an adult who sees the good in kids and encourages them to have fun and cares about how they're doing. Or something like that.

At some point before I go in tomorrow I need to write a story about how they all band together to find the Christmas Dragon.

Blue Ridge Tunnel

December 1st 2018 will forever be the day I went through the Blue Ridge Tunnel. About 1200 meters, with knee deep water in places and crawling through two small pipes. One of the creepiest and fun experiences in my life.

December 1st

This day is an important day for me. In 2015 it was the day I started my job at after school and basically the day I moved to Charlottesville. A year later it was the day I got chewed out by my supervisor and decided to leave my job. It was also the day I saw one of my favorite bands in concert and one of the last times I saw a very good friend before they moved.

2017 was not nearly as eventful but I did get a really positive performance review from a supervisor at my new job.

This year December 1st is a Saturday so it will probably be a totally regular day but that's fine too. Happy 3 years of living in Cville, me.

low battery

there's a special kind of disappointment from your phone vibrating and you thinking you got a text but it's just your phone telling you to charge it.

End of November

This month came and went pretty fast. I only worked 2 full weeks of work. This last week was a really good one at after school. Very few conflicts. Lots of good interactions. Lots of buy in and fun from the kids. I hope we can keep it going.

Running was pretty great. I was really happy with the 8k and this first week back has gone exceptionally well.

My hopes for December are to keep things going as they are.

Sometimes I get hung up on negative thoughts and things I can't control. And then I get frustrated with how much energy I waste on those thoughts. But I try to think about my routine and the things I do intentionally every day. And if I stick to those things and do them well then there's only so much time and energy to waste. If that makes sense or is at all interesting.

My lips are chapped. I need to drink more water.

I Love to Hate Thursdays

They're challenging with the kids. We have a lot of them and the energy just seems to be high and kinda negative. I get frustrated with the kids who won't listen and have to get stern with them. All of that is fine though. We're socializing the youth!

I challenge myself to not get frustrated though and be more creative with showing what is important.

Sending out mail today

Ran some cold hills

The fall training block ended.

The break after the block ended.

I got my butt kicked in a race.

The winter training block has begun.

I feel infinitely better at the beginning of this block than I did starting the last block. Improved fitness.

The goal is to run lots of miles and lots of hill workouts.

Today I did 21 minutes of running up and down the Reservoir Hill. They weren't fast but I tried to work on maintaining good form. I'm excited for February and March races.

things I learned from racing today

-honestly assess how your body feels before the start. Is everything ready to go or is that just what you want to believe?

- not running for a week then running 4 times is poor prep. Even if I was in great shape before that week off

-i don't run well below 40 degrees or so

- if temperatures are not ideal, I should not go out hard because of a sense that I should be able to run with certain people

-I've also gone out too hard in the heat with the same results

-learn the course and where the mile markers are. Keep track of splits.

-when conditions are not optimal, start out slower and build momentum to have a better feeling race rather than a slow death towards the middle/end

- don't let your crappy mood bother other people for too long. mope then get over it

-use a poor race as motivation to get back into training. nothing is guaranteed. you always have to put in the work

Quote of the Week

From a 9 year old last week:

"I'M FROM ST. LOUIS, I THINK I CAN HANDLE IT!"

Running Again

Got over the sickness yesterday. Still a little phlegmy but head is clear.

I ran 40 minutes yesterday and 60 minutes this morning. On Thursday I'm running, and hopefully winning, the turkey trot. I still feel sluggish but I know I can't have lost any fitness in just one week of not running.

Just two easy days of work then going to Harrisonburg for the holiday. I'll draw a lot. Maybe make some collages again. My mom has good magazines for collaging.

WORD OF THE BIRD #10

SnowSick Day

Yesterday I didn't move much because there was sleet all day and school was closed and I'm congested and sore throating having. So I guess I'm thankful that my off week of no running coincided with illness and terrible weather. Otherwise I would've faced a lot more guilt and/or discomfort.

I gotta go make the word of the bird now. Still congested but feeling better and Fridays are so much more chill at after school than Thursdays.

Hanksgiving

hanksgiving

The Sections of My Day

7:30 AM - 9 AM: wake up. Since I have nowhere to be in the morning. I usually spend an hour or so trying to sleep more and/or trying to come up with reasons to get out of bed. Not a productive part of the day. Lots of room for improvement. Up until recently I woke up to NPR and would ignore it for an hour. Check phone a whole bunch.

9AM-10AM: turn on WNRN. Brush teeth. Make coffee. Make oatmeal. Do small chores like making bed, putting dishes away, organizing. Pretty productive time.

10AM- 11AM: eat breakfast and draw or work on some small creative task. Also talk with roommates and think about running. Check phone a whole bunch. 

11AM-12:40PM: running. The best.

12:40PM-1:30PM- shower, get ready for work, eat a quick lunch. More wnrn. More talking. check phone a whole bunch.

1:30PM- 1:50 PM- drive to work. Listen to wnrn and npr, whichever is better in the moment. Don't check phone!

2PM-6PM: work. This could be further subdivided. There's prep time, check in, announcements, outside time, snack, free time, gym time, clean up. It's all generally pretty good. I like the kids and the work a lot.

6:15PM-7PM: drive home and listen to Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal. Stay in car until Marketplace is over. Check phone a whole bunch when home.

7PM-8PM: make and eat dinner and do dishes. Talk with roommates. Maybe more wnrn.

8PM---bedtime: varies a lot. Sometimes drawing. Sometimes talking. Lately it's been reading and going to bed early. Lots of phone time. I could be more consistent about going to sleep at a certain time.

But that's pretty much it! This would be any weekday from the last few months barring special occasions.

Cheese

I read some sections of this book that was all about how lots of foods lie about being authentic versions of things like parmesan cheese and kobe beef and champagne and extra virgin olive oil and coffee and tea and wine and pretty much anything that can be sold at a premium is in a market overrun by imitators. To the point that everyone is doing it so pervasively that the people who make the real item and want to protect the name can't do so because regulatory agencies don't recognize the imitation as wrong doing.

Anyway, the book is very much from a consumer perspective and it tries to offer tips on how to avoid counterfeits and it basically boils down to giving the right people a lot of money.

But to me the more interesting parts of the book are when it shows what the authentic production process looks like. Like it describes how this place in Parma, Italy is like this awesome self-sustaining community that revolves entirely around making great cheese and ham. And they get to enjoy it all the time because they live there and that's their whole deal.

But then, it seems like it's better to live like people live than to chase the specific thing they make.  Like the actual cheese product isn't as important as the process that creates it.

The book is like "oh man, it sure sucks that there's this great thing but we can't get it because the market is flooded with fakes. it is hard to be a consumer"

Why not just also make a great thing? That seems more sustaining than trying to consume all the great things that could exist. I don't know.

Join my kombucha kommune. That's all I'm saying.

how to not use all your data when

your house has no wifi
your name is andy and you're alive right now
you ran out of data last month

1. don't go on youtube ever except when you're at work which has wifi

2. Don't go on instagram explore page ever

3. Upload and download things at work where there's wifi

4. Remove YouTube, chrome, and instagram from your home screen

5. only interact with text and low quality pictures

Boom. you did it. Go to the library and get books to keep you occupied. Reread Scott Pilgrim. It's still SO GOOD.

Yesterday was a good day

Yesterday I ran the Richmond 8k
My time was 25:40 and I finished in 27th place. That's around 5:08 per 1600. It felt really good and everything came together pretty perfectly. I also reconnected with team blitz and met its current members. That was a lot of fun.

I haven't run a race that I was proud of since the Charlottesville 10 Miler in March 2017, so a little over a year and a half.  That was mostly due to injury and work commitments.  I'm happy that I got back to the level I was at in 2017 by designing my own training and mostly running alone. I think I learned that lots of long slow running can get me in good race shape and that I don't need a lot of hard workouts several times a week.

Going into the winter my goal is to do A LOT of a slow running to set up for the spring where my key races are the Colonial Half and Charlottesville 10 miler. Woo.

WORD OF THE BIRD #9

Last Night I Texted Andy Goodstein

I was googling myself to see what would show up and I found the number for another Andy Goodstein who lives in Colorado. The following is a transcript of our conversation.

Andy: Is this Andy Goodstein? This is also Andy Goodstein. Another Andy Goodstein. Who lives in Virginia.

Andy: Hi there, can I help you with something?

Andy:
I was just googling myself and your number came up and I've never spoken to another Andy Goodstein before. Don't mean to bother you. Have a good one.

Andy: Okay, thanks

A spiritual awakening if there ever was one.

Work Today. Data Collection.

Today was a super calm day so I got to be goofy and have fun and talk to the kids a lot.

-i did a beatboxing workshop with some kindergartners. I was working on my snare drum. By the end of it I trained a kid so that when i said "snare", he would say "poop" in a deep voice.

-i asked some kids to evaluate what they thought was important at after school. They mostly liked "fun" "free time" "computers" "the gym" and "word of the bird"

- i let a kid lead the transition in from the playground and he screamed at everyone. Good fun.

-a girl made me a welcome mat/pillow out of a large sheet of plastic and green paper. I think it got thrown away though while I was in the gym :(

Good stuff, man.

The Dorito Effect

I started reading the Dorito Effect today. It's about how, at the cost of production, food is becoming more bland and, in turn, more flavored by artificial means. Pretty interesting.

Unrelated: I want to download a bunch of royalty free folk music and set it over videos of nature and the outdoors.

The woods called

Very successful outing. We crossed streams. Went up and down many steep banks. Got lost and went in a big circle when we were trying to go straight.  Saw a mysterious black tube with buckles on it. Saw a shiny blue balloon. Found mysterious white fungus. Knocked over a dead tree. Just walked around on a beautiful autumn afternoon.

Woods are Calling

Since September,  my roommate Will George and I have been planning to march into the unchartered depths of the camp woods. Today the temperature is mild and damp and much of the flora has receded. We will head off into the unknown.

Just ran

102 minutes. It gets dark really early. It felt much longer than 102 minutes. My legs got tired at the end. Yesterday I ran the same time but in the middle I stopped at the UVA track and ran a 4:57 for 1600m in my tevas sandals. A sandals PR!

I feel excited and prepared for the 8k next saturday. My goal was low-26 minutes but now I feel confident that I can break 26, which is in line with other races I've done and I feel like I'm in comparable shape to the past. On Wednesday Peyton and I had 2x3200 with 3:30 rest in 10:32 and 10:21 then a 4:00 rest and a 1600 in 4:59. And I was pretty well rested but the paces in the 3200s felt comfortable. I'm most encouraged by how good everything felt rather than how hard I was able to run. So that's good. The rest of the runs this week will only be between 50 and 60 minutes and all about feeling gooooooooood.

A brief moment

To appreciate that I'm no longer in school, spent the afternoon in downtown cville and the light was incredible.

No wifi

Currently in the JMRL. A library. I meant to post at least once a day this month. Already messed that up. Ran out of data yesterday. I'm learning to severely cut back on using data. Which has had the effect of drastically reducing YouTube and chrome use. I'm still weaning myself off the instagram explore page which sucks up a ton of data. But the upside to all of this is that I'm excited about reading and going to libraries again. Particularly the reading. A much better way to be engaged than the internet.

So it occurs to me as I'm writing this that this blog could be a repository for small thoughts that happen throughout the day. Like texting myself. Instead of its old function, when I had wifi for a laptop, of trying to little pieces of writing, drawing, whatever.

Anyway, that's the plan.

What I'm checking out of the library today:

-everyone's an aliebn when ur a aliebn too

-the dorito effect

-food anatomy

-best efforts by kenny moore

Hot take

To get anywhere in this modern time world, you're gonna have to use a whole bunch of words.

- please
- thank you
- sorry
- dos cervesas

Word for your lives, dudes.

No wifi for the time being so I'm writing this on my phone. I just spent the last hour reading a journal I started in late summer 2016. I read up until early 2017.

Looking back on it, there was a lot that person (me) didn't know that they didn't know. But I think he was doing his best with what he had and going about things the right way in the moment. 

And I'm sure the same is true of right now.  Which is to say, this isn't even my final form.

I think I'm a lot calmer now than the person who was writing then. He was trying really hard at a job that wasn't working out and had to leave and start a new job that was a lot more intense. He was going through a relationship that fell apart. He didn't make enough money.

It was really really emotional writing.  And I guess I'm not as worried anymore about things that used to stress me out. So that's good.

Word of the Bird #8

Time for Another Adventure in Creative Writing

Today we're responding to a comment from a reader creatively.

2.0 writes:

This post prompted me to check if Tom Oatmeal is still a thing, and he is! He's made many post in the years since I stopped reading his Tumblr. I won't go back though. I will just get sad again. I owe it to myself not to get sad at Tom Oatmeal.

Turns out, unbeknownst to me at the time, that Tom Oatmeal is a long-running tumblr account with blogs written in a style somewhat similar to my post about a guy named Tom who works with oatmeal. That's pretty interesting. How does a coincidence like that occur?

Let's go inside the mind of the writer to found out. Traditionally, western portrayals of entering the brain from outside the body occur through the ear. This is false and misleading. We know from ancient texts and oral tradition that the proper entry to the brain, as practiced by the Ancient Egyptians, is through the nose. So we go in through the nose and through some dark canals and into the brain!

We have to find the snake in here that ripped off the Tom Oatmeal guy and shake it down. Look! There it is. It's a literal snake that's partially submerged in the unconscious. You grab it by the snake-shoulders and slap it around a few times. "You! How could you rip off, Tom Oatmeal. You made me look like a jerk!"

The snake pleads, "No no no! It's a well-known phenomenon called cryptomnesia! You must have heard Tom Oatmeal somewhere and then forgot about it and you mistook the memory for an original thought!"

But it's too late. You have disowned the snake. "Pack your things and go," you say. The snake may be right but what's more important, being right or your pride?

Thanks again for commenting. 

The Oatmeal Tastes like Soap

The last few days the oatmeal has tasted like soap. Maybe the soap that's being used to wash the pot that boils the water is the cause. I drank some of the water out of the pot and it doesn't taste like soap. It must be the oats. Join me now, reader, and the soapmeal will be our launch point into the imaginative layer of reading.

There, look down below the clouds and trees and look through the tops of buildings with your special reading eyes. We can see the oatmeal factory and the oatmeal man, hard at work shaving oatmeal flakes off of an enormous oatmeal log. We see the great oatmeal forests off in the distance. The oatmeal pines are still chopped down by axe and brawn and dragged by a team of mules to the oatmill where they are cut and processed. Oatmeal binds this community together.

Back to the oatmeal man, Tom. Tom uses his planer and takes a mighty shave off the oatmeal log which produces a singular beautiful slim scrap of oatmeal that will be cut up and sent to Kroger in a cardboard tube. And then, having completed this well-practiced maneuver, Tom reaches into his pockets where he has about three to four bars of Dial soap in each pocket. Tom swishes and swashes his hands around to get a good lather going in his deep, specially made soap pockets, He removes his hands from his pockets and gives about two or three good loose shakes to get the excess suds off and goes back to this work. All day long Tom makes elegant strips of oatmeal and engulfs his hands in the sweet embrace of bar soap.

You can only tell people to wash their hands more, thinks Tom. You can't tell someone to wash their hands less. That's not how it works. That's not the world that was promised to me when I decided to be a part of it.

And now my oatmeal tastes like soap.

Running History

I joined the track team in 7th grade after i ran the presidential fitness standard for the mile in gym class. Little did I know, that beating the presidential standard by 6 seconds makes you the second slowest kid on the team.

But it was fun to be on a team and do my first organized sport. Up until then I'd just been in afterschool programs and played in the neighborhood. I improved a lot in one season. My gym class mile was 7:05, my first time trial on the team at the start was 6:41 and my best time by the end was 6:11.

I remember at the end of the season we did some longer runs, like 3 or 4 miles and I was able to keep up with the faster kids who usually were way ahead in races and workouts. Also I remember there was a big invitational at the end of the season and I got to go along and run the 400 because no one really wanted to run it. I remember there was a guy who was faster than me who didn't get picked and I asked the coach about it and the sense I got was that I seemed to care more and was worth keeping around. The 400 itself was awful and beforehand I was too nervous to form any words.

I knew I wasn't good relative to other kids in races but I liked being on the team and doing practice and improving. Anyway, I was told a few years ago that I should write down my running autobiography so I guess this is a rough sketch of a start.

Word of the Bird #7

Things That Are Good

-running is going great

-living at camp with my roommates is great

-my bed is great

-making things is great

-listening to marketplace on the drive home is great

-the weather is great

-doing awesome things on the weekends is great

-getting lots of sleep is great

-wearing tie dye all the time is great

yeah, great things are great

job thoughts

I started this google spreadsheet that all of the kids at after school can edit. and the squares are like a grid landscape. I call it birdonia. Here are some screenshots from it.

It grows

these are the good days

since I've started running this Fall it's felt more difficult than I remember running feeling. And not having as many people to run with has also changed things. So I've been building this narrative that I'm a little washed up now or past my prime or on my way towards getting away from running.

But then I stopped pitying myself for a bit and realized that I'm probably in the middle of feeling the best I'll ever feel in running. This is as good as it might get.

this is as good as it might get

Word of the Bird #6

Word of the Bird #5

Word of the Bird #4

October 11

I woke up in a ghostly panic. You know, the way ghosts sometimes appear to be panicking, such was my panic. The ghost sheets were cold, the sheets would be cold if they were somehow also a ghost. From within my ghost room, I could see the ghostly light of the dim grey ghost world outside. What a terrible day. I ghost shuddered and got up to walk across the ghostly floor, all covered in fog and trash amd and the corpses of insects that seep up through the tile like a stupid curse. I ran my hands all over the door to the bathroom to see if I could trip any secret wires that might activate some kind of contraption whereby a mechanical hand would emerge from the ceiling holding a silver platter and atop that a note in handwritten letters saying "you're good enough." But none of that happened. And as I entered the bathroom I turned on the light and the screaming fan howled and I looked at the mirror and saw, to my complete surprise, without any warning or previous indications, that I was a ghost.

How Today is

Watched the 2nd half of the Witch last night on netflix with my roommates.

It was fun. The movie was more interesting than scary.

Had trouble sleeping because lots of thoughts about work and how to do things.

Woke up and played around with a music app to use at after school. Mix it up. Have a little fun.

I need to run soon but don't really want to yet. I think there might be fatigue from last week and the weekend where I didn't rest very much.

Every day is a new one.

Updates from the Kingdom of Birdonia

Long ago, a great land was discovered on a cafeteria door. That land was the Land of Birdonia. And people settled that land and they built many great and wonderful things on it.

Alex and Philip and Gus joined together and built things like an infinite money pit, a droid factory, a navy, barracks for soldiers, and arrows that fling people into space when they step on them. Their alliance was very powerful and everyone thought it was pretty cool.

Mark and Derek were also aligned and they built all kinds of awesome stuff. So much stuff that it cannot all be named. Nor fit on the map. But it is very awesome nonetheless.

McKinzy and Eden also joined forces and they built a garden and had a yachtmansion that was a yacht with a mansion on top of it.

Luke and Kai were a powerful duo who had jetpacks, underground cave systems, and a top secret base underwater that was only reachable by secret entry.

Jane lived in a cabin in the woods.

Zora built a house made of pillows.

Annabelle had a mansion as well.

Davis was only aligned with Gus and he possessed a cloning tank and a factory.

Jasper was aligned with himself and he had a castle and was building an air force.

Samantha also had a castle to herself and Meg made a diving board.

Finally, Cade had a floating mansion and Henry liked to drive around in his tank.

Life was good in the Land of Birdonia. But trouble was on the horizon, soon everything would be turned upside down and great threats would befall the land. Only through working together would the great people of this land be able to save their home and all the cool stuff they made.

Some sentences about snakes and stuff

Your snakes are cold. This Sunday try using your snake basket as your laundry basket. The snakes will appreciate the warmth.

 Snakes are the most considerate creatures. They never touch things with dirty hands. This is because snakes do not possess hands. Rather, they use their muscular stomachs to conquer any terrain.

Putting a feather in one's hat is insufficient to strike fear in the heart of your opponent. Rather, shove a  handful of snakes in your mouth to make people think that you breathe snakes.

Bake off? Snake off.

Why rake the leaves when you could snake the leaves? That's where you put your snake basket underneath the pile of leaves in your yard. The neighbor kids will think twice about jumping in a pile of leaves if they are worried about potentially injuring a basket of snakes in there.

Singular: snake. Plural: snakes. Singular special: snek. Plural special: sneki.

Lovecraft Octobercraft. Herbert West: Reanimator

Last night I listened to approximately the first half of Lovecraft's story, Herbert West: Reanimator. It's kind of similar to Frankenstein except instead of working alone the narrator is a guy who is West's assistant as he goes around getting in all kinds of wacky hi-jinks trying to animate the dead.

West starts his experiments in college but falls out of favor with professors when he insists that he needs human corpses to experiment and he needs them to be fresh. I cannot overstate how many times the word fresh is used.

West and his friend sneak around and dig up bodies and try to bring them back to life with this special serum that West injects in them. And then the first one they try, they think it doesn't work but then later it probably did and now there's a zombie roaming around probably trying to kill them.

Also West reanimates this one professor who never liked his experiments and the professor became a hero after a typhoid plague struck the town but then the professor died and then he became a monster.

This story is pretty spooky but it's not really a classic psycho-mystical subconscious Lovecraft story. It's more like a gritty-grim tale of these two guys digging up dead bodies, running from the law, running from the dead bodies they dig up, waking up and getting on their grind every day. This is the working man's Lovecraft. Tom Hanks would have a role in the movie version.

I'm going to listen to the second half tonight and report back in the morning. The creepiest parts of this story are when West and the narrator feel the fear of their reanimated corpses potentially lurking. But what makes a good lovecraft story is when the turn happens, and this little trickle of weirdness and these emerging patterns finally crescendo into this enormous gaping maw of cosmic horror and chaos and evil. It's like In the Hall of the Mountain King. Go listen to that. It's like 2 minutes long. To get a sense of the increase in magnitude.

Anyway, so far this story doesn't really seem to do that. West is just a creepy guy doing creepy guy stuff.

Planning This Week's Word of the Bird

We're going to have a breaking news story. About Trucks.

We're going to have a list article. Best Ways to Use....

We're going to have a profile on someone. Someone Famous.

We're going to have a story article...like a narrative. About...Pizza Cat.

We're going to have an after school tip. Brushing Your Teeth.

We're going to have a nose review.

We're going to have a public service announcement.

Happy Spookaween

For october I wanted to do an audio book club/review of some hp lovecraft stories. I got into listening to them last year after I listened to Peter Draws read The Color Out of Space.

Tonight I'm listening to The Horror From the Middle Span. It's about this guy with a weird uncle who dies and the nephew goes to live in his house. I'll summarize it more in the morning. Update to follow.

The Horror From the Middle Span

as remembered by Andy

Ambrose Bishop goes to this skunky part of Massachusetts because his uncle Septimus Prime is believed dead. Septimus was, by all accounts, a total spooklord and a weird guy in a shop gets all creeped out when Ambrose shows up and tries to buy some stuff.

Ambrose thinks his uncle's house is pretty cool. It has a cupola. Ambrose knows that Septimus was super smart and that's probably why Septimus was mistrusted by the ignorant, idiotic locals. It's very important that we continue to repeat just how stupid everyone is around here. Anyway, Septimus's house is old and spooky and covered in mildew and books and pentagrams and stuff. Ambrose isn't sure what to make of the pentagrams because he knows that his uncle was a man of logic and science and not superstition like these disgusting yokels and bumpkins all around.

Ambrose finds a spooky cellar below the house and below that is a spooky hallway and below that is a spooky sanctum with an altar in it and there is even another trap door that leads to lower than the sanctum but Ambrose doesn't open that door.

Ambrose is like, oh man, this is weird. He goes for a walk and he sees a spooky collapsed bridge. But there's one part in the middle that is not only still standing but has been strengthened recently. It's the middle span of the bridge. At this point the reader knows that this is where the horror was/is. The general path that all Lovecraft stories of this kind tend to take is that some creepy guy, Septimus, was working on some sort of dark magic in secret and it turned him super creepy and then it gets out of control and he dies but not before freaking everybody out and going bonkers. 

We learn from some lettters that Ambrose reads that Septimus was in communication with all the other spooklords of the world, including Wilbur Weightly, who is the star of another story that I cannot remember the name of right now. Wilbur is a creep-o beep-o and his story is pretty similar to this one.

Anyway, Ambrose is slowly learning all this and getting freaked out so he keeps going down to the cellar because his horror and curiosity draw him in and then it turns out Septimus is still alive and he was probably abducting people to use for blood sacrifices and be immortal and junk.

Oh yeah, Ambrose finds some bones and he's like "oh cool, bones!". He finds the bones over by the middle span after a big flood. And he takes the bones and puts them in his spook cellar. Later he eats some lunch and then goes back to play skeleton with his bones but the bones are missing! surprise. Uncle Septimus is back now because he was either the bones or he was a thing that ate the bones to come back to life. Ambrose passes out when he sees his uncle and the uncle disappears for a while.

People from the town start to go missing and everyone is like "oh my gosh, this happened the last time Septimus Bishop was all weird and now his nephew is here and it's happening again!" And Ambrose is scared. And the townsfolk show up at his house and they burn it down and presumably the Uncle and Ambrose get sealed away in that bridge from earlier.

the end.

Good Weekend

For running and at camp.

Yesterday and today I was up at 7:30 to work in the kitchen during meals. We had a belly dance camp and I did dishes with Kim and Will. It feels really good to work at camp.

Saturday I did a 1600m time trial. I ran a 4:45. Pretty good time considering my training  and running alone. I just wanted to break 5.

Today I did 20 miles @7:30 pace. Legs were a little tired but it felt easy and I was able to pick it up at the end instead of bonking.

Also, the men's 4 miler, my goal race is happening on December 15th and the course is in town instead of UVA. So that kinda changes things. I think I'll sign up for the Richmond 8k on 11/10. It's gonna be great!

Another Day

Haha! Safely made it through another day. I guess you aren't supposed to talk about things like being safe because that's supposed to increase your risk of danger. Like you can only be safe if you aren't actively thinking about being safe. Or rather, if you aren't constantly reminding yourself that you're safe or PROUD that you're safe, as if you've gotten away with something.

You ever look at your hands right now and think 'woah, is that what my hands look like?'. I guess you're supposed to know things like the back of your hand but I kinda surprised myself with the back of my hand just now. There's new lighting in the Annex and I think it's making my hands look old.

Woops, better not talk about having old hands or I'll jinx it and wake up with tiny smooth baby hands. Wouldn't that be terrible.

Would not that be terrible? Would it be terrible? I can't tell.

card #140

sneaking past the door troll

sweet talking the door demon

taking out the door guy

Things are going well

I let the auto suggestions on my phone make the title.  And it's true!

Having a good week this week. The last time I worked at afterschool, in 2016, I would have been very nervous to have groups of 15 to 20 kids entirely by myself. Now it's just normal and they're a great group. I'd take more. Occasionally I'm spread too thin but more often than not the kids choose the right thing on their own. So that's great.

Qnxious

I'm worried about doing enrichment at after school. Mostly because I like the program being more of a chill after school hang out than an enrichment focused program.  But without programming I feel like a fraud, in a way. Or guilty.

I also know it's going to be an uphill battle to get the kids together as a group and get them to listen and be engaged in something and I'm having a hard time convincing myself why they should care. I don't know. I think for now I just need to focus on having some positive experiences and not get too focused on what's constraining me or what isn't going perfectly. I think it's that point of the year where we're settling in and storming a little and some kids are starting to push back and push limits.  And that's okay. There's no rush to get anywhere.  We're after school.

Trying to Better My Smoothies

Fall Break, Byrtle Meach 1945

Today I left my phone at work because when I was leaving work I thought I had left it at home. So I went back to work to look for it and talked to Rigobert and he had found it and put it in his office and the unique experience of driving back to the school at 8:30 and listening to new radio programs and different songs and the joy of finding my phone after thinking it was lost and getting to talk to Rigobert who was very nice---all of that was way better than the stuff I waste my time with on my phone.

So, go figure. 

wednesday, spetember 91 twony18

my fish is broken.

analyzing the crumbstacean

buying a new computer

going to the market

servicing the soda machine

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I'm trying to think of ways to make enrichment fun at after school. The major challenges are making it different than school and also the kids are pretty content and have gotten used to a schedule where we don't ask much of them. It's gonna be an uphill battle of getting buy in and figuring out how to keep them off their computers or get them off their computers and be engaged. 

The enrichment runs on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday so I need to fill 3 days a week.

For Tuesdays I made this giant grid out a 5'x3' piece of paper with 540 two inch squares. I'm going to call it the Kingdom of After School and it's going to be this ongoing project where they make characters in the world and react to things that are going on. On Tuesdays when we meet we'll talk about what's going on and what people want to do with their pieces. That could last for a while.

And then on Wednesdays I had this idea for a weekly competition where they design a plant, like a tree, bush, flower, whatever, and every week different weather and environmental effects are going to occur and based on how they've set up their plants preferences and stuff they'll earn different points and there will be a leaderboard and stuff. And then every week they will get the chance to modify their plant and adjust how it's doing. So Wednesday will be presenting those results and giving them the chance to make changes and stuff.

Thursday I was thinking that some of them already really have projects that they like doing so Thursday could be about checking in on what projects they are doing. Some of the kids are really into making a play. Some of the kids like to craft and make things. Some like to do reports and present things. There a few that just want to play games and beyond that they're sticks in the mud but I bet I can find a project they might enjoy. The focus is on ownership of something and presenting it to the group. And then maybe I'll build in some sort of incentive to it to entice the recalcitrant ones.

yeah yeah yeah!

Tryna Make Stuff

I have to caption like 60 images for a game. And then also make 120 more images and then caption those. But the idea is that the titles would be an action that you would do in an RPG style game like Dungeons and Dragons. Or just whatever.

slaying the hydra

or something like that. But also I have a compulsion to post things on a daily basis so this long term project can be fueled by these daily posts. And I'll just spitball some ideas and you can vote in the comments or suggest your own.

-making the fighter do all the work

-training the pupil

-fighting some dumb monster

-attacking the chuckle-headed beast

-fighting an underwhelming boss

Y'know stuff like that.

running is going good. shout out to 2.0. Hope his foot recovers soon. He's the best post-college bike pacer I've ever had.

a diagram

the kids said they wanted to make a game that simulates them escaping from after school. this is a plot diagram I guess.

At each event they need to make a roll of the dice to see if they succeed in doing that thing. They have three stats: physical (PHYS), mental (MNTL) and sneak. If they mess up more 5 times then they are stuck at after school until they get picked up. I'll use actual pictures from the school. Should be pretty easy to put together.

Tonight I expanded the monster dungeon one. It has 20 creatures now and I changed around how the stats work and things.

I still want to finish the Cave of Doom and also do an adventure based on At the Mountains of Madness and one based on going through the digestive tract and a nonsense-absurd surrealism one. 

Then at some point I'll make the card game I've been trying to make. eventually.

cave of doom notes

The Cave of Doom

intro to the game(?)/ slideshow I'm making for after school

The Third of the Birds

Mostly long story about zombies but best article is definitely Cassiar Memekio's impassioned plea for us to cut the mississippi in half!

RUNNING UPDATE

Last Week- 660 minutes! Hooray! I met the ambitious arbitrary number. Great success.

Last Wednesday: It was extremely hot. I was sweating everywhere only halfway into the warm-up. The workout went well though. I ran 3 x 10 minute segments around a ~2 mile neighborhood loop, not going the full 2 miles but 10 minutes worth and then jogging the rest as recovery. The first loop felt good and fast. The second one was faster but effortful. The third one I wanted to give up because my legs felt dead and I thought for sure I was falling off the pace. But then I didn't fall off the pace and it ended up being the fastest owing to last some second sprinting at the finish. Just like a race. So that was a great workout.

Saturday: I ran in Richmond and my friend Chris showed me some cool spots and it was a good run.

Sunday: 2 hours long run. Because it was about 30 degrees cooler and raining, I was able to do that workout that I did on Wednesday in the middle of the long run with out any rest in between. I was feeling good so I started running hard and comfortable hard in 60 degrees was the equivalent to all-out in 90 degrees, I mean. So that was cool and encouraging.

Yesterday Workout: I was supposed to drive out to Jarman's Gap to do an uphill tempo. Well, driving requirements are kinda awful and until I start waking up earlier that probably won't happen. But I did some hard running in the Reservoir Trails that felt really good. It was 7x 3 minutes running FAST/ 1 minute running easy. My legs were pooped!

All of the days I've been skipping over have been 100 minute days. They don't vary much from day to day. Pretty slow. Pretty easy. On Monday I ran with my roommate Kim. That was good. I was really tired from Sunday. Tuesday I also considered not running as much but then got into it and didn't want to stop. Overall it's still going very well. Good to be out of the heat. The train rolls on.

Some ideas I had while I was running today

Things I'd want to make

-for the month of October I'd like to do an audio book club where I listen to audiobooks of HP Lovecraft and try to summarize them every day. The major conceit would be that every story stars HP Lovecraft himself and he's constantly obsessed how much he's scaring you and how scary everything he describes is

-I'd like to make one minute songs where at the very beginning I say a short phrase about what the song is called and why

-I'd like to draw gnarly pictures of cells doing cell things and then describing them as if they were pirates or trainrobbers or in love

-I'd like to make alternative audio commentary to track and cross country races. Heightening the drama and tension to the utmost degree. My first race would be Jakob Ingebrigtsen winning the European Championship 1500m and his nickname would be Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius

Yeah, any of those could be really fun to do.

It's not perfect but here's the slides to the choose your own adventure powerpoint

Issue #2 Volume 3

They're Back!

free write: word of the bird articles

if you want a job writing for the word of the bird, a newspaper I make for a bunch of elementary school kids in an after school program, leave an article in the comments.

We are now acceptable articles for news, weather, sports, nose reviews, listicles, ratings, advice, point/counterpoint, stories, jokes, puzzles, riddles, brainteasers, riddles, opinions, and much more.

I'm gonna write as many articles as I can in 10 minutes.

Ready.

Go.

Week in Review:

This week will be remembered as another ridiculously hot week. It was so hot and humid that a lot of the playground was melting. Some people thought it looked like ice cream and they licked it. But it wasn't ice at all. It was scalding hot plastic. We had to call in an oral surgeon who successfully transplanted pig tongues onto the tongues of about half the kids in one second grade class. They're all better now accept from some reason you can hear a lot more oinking from the hallway when you walk by that class. Oh well.

List: Top 5 Ways to Stay Cool in the Heat

#1- Tape bags of ice all over your body. Tape a bag to your legs, arms, stomach, back, and FACE!

#2- Live underground like a worm.

#3- Stop wearing oven mitts all the time. You are not a baker!

#4- Stick a thermometer in the freezer for about 20 minutes and then shove it in your earhole!

#5- Humans sweat. Dogs pant. What do cats do? Seriously. WHAT DO THEY DO TO NOT BE HOT?!

Interesting Profile: Argentina

Argentina is a county in South America. The official language of Argentina is Spanish. If you go back in time in Argentina, you will still be in Argentina, it will just be 1905. Argentina is in the Southern Hemisphere. Argentina is so big that if it were a person it could eat a million hamburgers in one bite. Some people think Argentina is not real and that people are just looking at a bear or something. People from Argentina find this view offensive.

After School Tip #2: Some times at after school and during regular school and in real life, we have to do things that are boring or not as fun like lining up or cleaning up an area. Some people use the strategy of complaining or being distracted. This not actually a very good strategy because it just makes these things take WAY LONGER. If you do things right the first time, you will actually have way more time to do things you WANT to do. And if you need to talk to someone or get help, then just ask. Plus! If you do a really good job then you will get a crap ton of praise and more awesome things will be able to happen at after school because everyone will trust you so much!

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Training Update: Adjusting

Thursday 8.31- Ran the tempo up and down camp road. It was really really hot. I thought going into it that I had a really good chance of breaking 30 minutes. Then the hills came and my focus was to not give up and make it a good effort. I think I accomplished that. A snazzy time would have been nice but effort is enough for now.

Sat 9/1- Went to a field with a friend from camp, Tanner, who goes to UVA. We did some barefoot X's for ten minutes. Felt snappy and good. I needed some more distance after running with Tanner so I stopped on the drive back and found a good 20 second hill on camp road. I did 8 reps of that and was pretty kaput. It felt good though. I miss hill sprints. Tanner also led some yoga that felt good. My hips and hamstrings should be taken better care of.

Week 1: Well, after forgetting how long the very first long run was supposed to be, I fell 20 minutes short of the weekly mileage goal. I'm not too upset by it. 600 minutes is still quality and I think the 100 minutes I did made more sense in the moment. It was a hot and humid week. I'm not super excited to go on my runs and 100 minutes still seems like a lot. It doesn't seem like the baseline yet. But I didn't get injured and I ran a lot and that's really all that matters in this first week of the comeback trail.

Sun 9/2- Broke 2 hours! Woo. Haven't done that since May. It was a pretty slow run on trails. All about getting time on the feet. Again, I'm not sticking to my aggressive long run schedule. I definitely did not cover 20 miles in that time. It probably wasn't too much longer in distance than the 100 minutes run from the first week. I felt good though.

Today and yesterday-- The work from the weekend catches up to me. Felt very slow to start today but got in a good rhythm about 30 minutes in. This week is about getting used to long daily running. Oh, yesterday I got to 93 minutes and was running by the pool at camp and instead of running for 7 more minutes I turned that into swimming in the pool. Hooray. 

Tomorrow is a workout! I'm going to go to a hilly residential loop and do 3 x 10 minutes hard with ~5 minutes jogging rest. It's going to be extremely hot and humid again so this is about effort. 

Things are starting to come a little bit easier. It's still a task to get through the week but I expect that once the mileage peaks I'll start to enjoy running a little more and feel a little better about racing and workouts. We'll see. I also don't want to over think it and just appreciate running as my favorite thing to do. I <3 p="" running.="">

free write: choose 'em challenge

I had this idea of a game to try at after school. It's like an old school, text-based adventure game mixed with DnD storytelling.

I looked up how to make non-linear powerpoints so that if a person is presented with a screen full of options, they can choose an option and the slideshow will immediately go to that corresponding slide instead of the next slide in the order.

So the idea is that the kids will create a character, either a fighter, wizard, or rogue, and then they have 9 different encounters to choose from.

Imagine a 3x3 grid, each labeled with a vague idea of what the encounter will be. They'll choose one and then that will take them to the choose 'em screen where they'll be presented with info about what they've encountered and they'll choose from 3 options to resolve the encounter. Each option is geared towards a respective hero's class. So like fighters will have an advantage if they choose a combat option or a brute force option. Wizards will have advantage with magic and studying or observing. Rogues will have advantage with collecting things or laying traps or using items.

They choose their option and then depending on what their class is and what they choose, they'll go to a screen describing what they do and how their success is determined.

So, for example, let's say you choose the encounter LOOK FOR FOOD.

Then you would go to the choose 'em screen for YOU ENCOUNTER BLUEBERRY PIE.

Your character is a wizard.

Your options for blueberry pie are DEVOUR, STUDY, POISON. or something like that.

Devour would be the fighter. Just mindlessly eating food. Study would be the wizard, trying to figure out the recipe and maybe enchant the pie or check for any curses or poison. And poison would be the rogue option, turning the pie into a weapon.

If you choose study, as a wizard, then you would get advantage and go to a screen that says:

You use your carefully honed powers of observation and quickly ascertain the key ingredients of the pie. You also attempt to detect if there is anything unusual about the pie or how it was made.

Roll d20 x 3, if 1 or more is +10, you succeed!

If not, bad stuff.

And so you would roll a 20 sided dice three times and if you can get just one of those rolls to be above a 10 then you would succeed and you would gain the ability to make a great pie and you would also realize that this pie is loaded with laxatives.

That's like a basic explanation. I'm hoping to have my first version, about the rainforest, finished by the end of the week and then I'll throw a link up here for people to check out.

I think the kids might like it and then I can also sneak in facts and stuff to make it relevant to our unit theme at after school. Mildly educational/trivia pieces.

my swampy domain

To pass through the Gate of Hivid, one must be an expert at

_________________. The downfall of all great heroes.

__________________ is worth more than a hundred screaming horses.

____________________. The thing that will make you wish you never grew up.

"You have to help me. I'm in danger of ____________________"

You hear a rumor that the mayor of the town is planning on ___________________

You are arrested for the crime of ______________________

Someone in the party shows clear signs of ___________________

You encounter a large brick wall. You try________________

When you wake up, all your items have been stolen. You try________________

beckoning the cow

web of plans

Week 1 update

I shortened the long run to 100 minutes. Still a really quality effort. I moved the workout to tomorrow in hopes that the temperature would drop but it looks like it will be hot and humid anyway. Oh well. I was super tired at the beginning of the week but today I felt more adjusted to the heat and mileage. Overall it's good and I should hit 600 for the week. I might double tomorrow or Friday and do a 30 minute easy run after work.

Lil characters

Plan #338

In addition to running and my after school job and camp and wanting to make a book, I've also been working on a game since like, winter of this year. It's a card game. I have about 120 drafts of cards made on a google doc and about 70 more images that will become cards. The goal is to get to 300 cards and then start printing and cutting and assembling and playing.

I worked really really hard on this project in the spring and then I lost momentum as the summer started. I'd like to get back to it so this is an attempt at doing that.

The game would be a spin-off of apples to apples/ cards against humanity but with illustrations and other game mechanics.

I need lots of nouns to become cards:

- raging polyp
- spatula lips
- wearing the perfect crown
- tired fish
- glib glob glue globules
- the smallest cruelty
-  high waisted thunder pants
- sun in a pinch
- wetted dander
- quad-peg-leg

Look for those cards and a whole lot more in a game I will likely finish at some point.

seeing my little sister

the great thing about seeing someone you know really well after not talking to them for a long time is getting to use a part of your brain that's activated when you're with that person. words and thoughts flow differently--more smoothly. everything connects and lands and syncs up in a way that is freeing and fun.

thanks erin
thanks brain

the boy who went far

the city that lives

Training Outlines

The official date hasn't been announced yet but I'm assuming the 4 Miler is happening on the 4th of November since it seems to fall on the first Sunday in November. 

Below these words here is the outline up to the race. I wanted to be ambitious with the mileage so I combined some of the workouts of 2016 with the volume of 2017. It will be an average of just over 600 min/week for 10 weeks.

I guess the 4 main ingredients are

high daily volume: Monday through Friday the goal is to be running around 100 min a day. Probably a slight dip on workout days. I notice I've done well when I just run a lot so the biggest priority is to run a lot.

long long run: 20 milers. those are good. do them.

workouts: there's less of a focus on structured workouts. I figure one hard aerobic effort per week will put me in good shape. Tempos and long fartleks to get used to running hard again. I chose 5 and then I plan to repeat 4 of them after the first cycle is done and then I'll feel a sense of progress and confidence. Those are good.

SPEED!: this one is always the most fun and the one that leads to injuries. But in lieu of taking days completely off, I like having a day where I try to simulate the best parts of high school track practice. So not worrying about racking up miles or minutes and having fun moving fast. It's the rest day of the week and more about just going fast. Will probably be between 40 and 50 minutes with lots of easy rest scattered about.

The goal for now is to beat 20:31. As I go that will most likely be refined.

All is well. I'm at 314 min for the week. Goal is 520 by Saturday. Will probably end up being higher.

Bean Tree

Mighty good tree right here.

I did some looking and this is a Catalpa. It's got large leaves and fruits that look like BEANS!

That's a thing I learned today and learning is the coolest.